


Bread and Roses

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1990s, Alternate Universe just in general, F/M, Sort Of, Wedding date
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26975614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: Rosemary Epp's ex-girlfriend is getting married, and she doesn't have a date for the wedding. Fortunately, her coworker, Olga Vologina, is happy to offer up her twin brother as a sacrifice.Dmitri Vologin has spent the past decade as a recluse, keeping himself busy by writing books about home gardening and by breeding roses. He is not at all certain he wants to go on a date with his sister's coworker, especially not to a wedding where he does not know anyone. But it turns out that Rosemary has read his books, and she manages to charm him into coming along with her... and, eventually, into leaving his seclusion and becoming a part of the world again.
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert & Olga Vologina, Alexander Hilbert/Original Female Character
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Rosemary Epps had been single for almost three years, and it was starting to become a problem.

Oh, not the singleness itself. She had found it somewhat freeing after almost twenty years of serial monogamy, and as high as her sex drive was, well, she didn’t _need_ another person to get off. It was just convenient to have one, that was all.

But six months back, her friends Adriane and Miranda had announced that they were getting married, and would Rosemary like to be a bridesmaid? And Rosemary, being Rosemary, had said yes.

Well, it turned out that there was a big difference between being happily single on her own time and being single while attending the wedding of the ex-girlfriend she was not quite certain she was over as one of the bridesmaids, and now, with the wedding just over a week away, she was starting to get just a little bit desperate to not face the event alone. That would be tantamount to a public declaration of how much her breakup with Adriane had affected her, and she would die before revealing that.

Rosemary needed a savior, and fast.

A brisk knock on her lab door jolted her out of her reverie, and a moment later Olga Vologina poked her head around Rosemary’s lab door. “Rosemary? You in here?”

Rosemary raised an eyebrow. “Where else would I be?”

“Sometimes you must go to the bathroom.”

“And I know better than to leave my lab door unlocked while doing so.” Rosemary capped the pen she realized she’d been fiddling with and tried to surreptitiously wipe the ink that had leaked from it onto a piece of scrap paper. “Did you want something?”

“I just wanted to remind you about tonight.”

Rosemary frowned and wracked her memory. “Oh! The drinks thing?”

Olga rolled her eyes. “Yes, the drinks thing. You have been saying you’ll come to another one for months! Today I refuse to allow you to claim you forgot.”

Olga got together at a local bar with a circle of friends and acquaintances every Thursday night for a bit of drinking and socializing meant to, as far as Rosemary could tell, fortify them for the final day of the workweek. Olga had been trying to drag Rosemary along for more than a year, claiming that Rosemary was the only sensible person in the corporate lab they both worked at and wouldn’t it be nice to socialize somewhere that wasn’t work, but Olga was almost a decade younger than Rosemary and Olga’s usual group of friends trended even younger than that, and the last time Rosemary had gone to one of these evenings had been intensely awkward. The bar had been full of bright young things not yet ground down by the world and all of its complications, and Rosemary had been left feeling almost impossibly old.

But maybe if she went tonight, she could find a date there.

She almost laughed at the thought. She might need to find a date on short notice, but she drew the line at cradle robbing.

Olga had apparently noticed her stifled mirth. “What is so funny?”

“Oh, just my life,” Rosemary said. “I need a date for next weekend, and I was thinking how ridiculous it would be to try and hunt one down at your thing tonight.”

“What do you need a date for?”

It wouldn’t hurt to offer up more information, Rosemary supposed. Just in case Olga had an older friend or two that Rosemary didn’t know about. “An ex girlfriend’s wedding. I’m a bridesmaid and it’s going to be as awkward as hell.”

Olga blinked, clearly surprised. Or possibly appalled. “Do I want to know why you are a bridesmaid for an ex girlfriend?”

“Technically two ex girlfriends. Though I suppose I only dated Miranda for a week.”

Olga gaped at that. “How is this your life?” Her voice came out as a low, despairing screech.

“They asked, and I just... I really like being useful.” Rosemary shrugged, awkward and one-shouldered. “I’m sure I can find someone, anyway.”

Olga frowned. “I would offer to go with you as a friend, but my anniversary is next weekend and my wife would never forgive me,” she said. “But I could introduce you to some people tonight...”

“No one younger than you are, I beg of you,” Rosemary said. Olga opened her mouth, obviously planning to protest this restriction, but Rosemary cut her off. “No. You’re already young enough I would feel awkward about it. Don’t stick me with some 20-something.”

“But that is all of my single friends!” Olga protested.

“Yes, well, that’s the line I’m drawing. I’d rather be with someone who shares at least some cultural touchstones with me, even if it’s not actually a real date.”

Olga seemed to be deep in thought, and Rosemary let her keep her silence. Finally, Olga met Rosemary’s eye, a dubious expression on her face. “I could ask my brother if he would go with you,” Olga said grudgingly. “He is single.”

Rosemary frowned. “This the brother you keep calling ‘my useless brother’ every time you talk about him?”

Olga made a face. “He is not actually useless. He is just...” She sighed. “Reclusive. He is reclusive.”

“Some people are made to be reclusive,” Rosemary said. “But if he’s willing to venture out into the world for one day, I would be eternally grateful.”

“Then I will ask him. And if he says yes, you will come along to drinks and meet him, yes?”

Rosemary laughed. “I’ll come along even if he doesn’t,” she said. “Though in case he does say yes, what’s this paragon’s name?”

“Dmitri.”

“Dmitri? Wait, does that mean that your brother’s name is Dmitri Vologin?” Now it was Rosemary’s turn to gape in surprise. “Like the Dmitri Vologin who wrote _Hydroponics for the Kitchen Gardener,_ that Dmitri Vologin?”

Olga raised an eyebrow. “So you have heard of him.”

“Olga, if you weren’t my friend I swear I would strangle you! Of course I’ve heard of him! I have a goddamn miniature garden in my kitchen because of him!” Rosemary let out a breathless laugh. “How have we been friends for this long without you bringing that up?”

Olga shrugged. “Like I said. He is reclusive. He does not like me talking about him.”

A sickeningly reasonable explanation. Even if Olga did complain about her twin brother from time to time, it was clear she loved him too, and respected his privacy. Still... “Even if he’s not interested in being my date, I’d love to talk to him,” Rosemary said. “His books are fantastic.”

An amused little smile quirked up the corners of Olga’s mouth. “I will let him know. See you tonight!”

“Tonight!” Rosemary called after her friend as Olga left the lab. She might not get a date out of it, but Rosemary was interested now. “But not so interested you talk his ear off about his books, you hear?” she told herself, catching sight of her reflection in one of the glass-fronted storage cabinets in her lab.

Her reflection made no promises.


	2. Chapter 2

“And why should I do this again?” Dmitri squinted suspiciously at his sister, holding up the page proofs he had intended to spend the evening working on up as a protective barrier between them. “I do not know the people getting married. I do not even know this work friend of yours.”

The door of the bar opened, and Olga glanced over, only keeping half of her attention on Dmitri as she responded. “You know I worry about you spending too much time alone.”

“I like being alone,” Dmitri argued. “And you force me to come out with you every other week.”

“And then you sit in this little booth and work all evening and do not talk to anyone!” Olga protested, turning her attention fully back to Dmitri. “Please. Just talk to her. It would only be once, and I think she is really desperate if she is asking me.”

“You have a lot of single friends. Ask one of them.” Dmitri tapped his stack of page proofs on the table before laying it flat, pulled a pen out of his pocket, and turned his attention deliberately to the stack of papers, making it clear to his sister that he was not planning to entertain this conversation any longer.

“Ah, there she is!” Olga stood up and waved across the room. “Rosemary! Over here!”

Dmitri dropped the pen to the table and tugged urgently on his sister’s sleeve. “Olga, please do not—” he was forced to cut his muttered protest short when a fat Black woman with a massive halo of curls appeared at the booth.

“I will just let the two of you introduce yourselves to one another,” Olga said, beaming down at Dmitri as if she had just given him a present. Before he could voice another protest, she was gone, making a dash for the bar.

Dmitri sighed and resisted the urge to rub his temple.

He turned his attention to the Black woman. The top of her head had only come up to the tip of Olga’s nose, which meant she might barely reach his chin if he were standing, but her shoulders were a good six or seven inches wider than his own and supported curves for which generous was too tepid a description. Of course, most of those curves were currently hidden under an oversized sweater and a pair of ridiculous fluffy legwarmers, the latter of which seemed to also be concealing leggings and a pair of snow boots in their depths. A bright teal wool coat was slung over one arm, clashing with the equally vivid colors of the rest of her clothing.

She was looking him over as well, obviously curious. But he could say this much for this Rosemary person: she did not gawk. No wide-eyed perusal, no glancing away awkwardly, just a friendly, open expression on her face as she slid into the booth across from him and offered him her hand to shake. Dmitri took the proffered hand cautiously, and received a brief, firm squeeze of a handshake in response, meticulously correct and, somehow, saying without words that this was awkward for her as well.

“So you’re Olga’s useless brother,” she said with an amused smile on her face. “Though I know enough about siblings to know I shouldn’t trust that assessment at face value.”

The smile on Rosemary’s face was startling in its warmth, and it left Dmitri a little breathless. He did not think she would have been a very attractive woman without that smile, but with it… well. He wasn’t even certain he was interested in women, but that smile was compelling, all the same.

He cleared his throat. “Yes. I am Dmitri. And you are Rosemary?”

She nodded. “Look, I know this is as awkward as hell. And I’m about to go over to the bar and get myself something terrifyingly strong in order to deal with feeling awkward myself, so if you’d really rather not talk to me at all I can just wander over to Olga’s friends for the rest of the night. But if you do…” She let out a little sigh and a twist of some unpleasant emotion, easily stifled, fled across her face. “I could get you something too? And then we could just talk. No expectations.”

“I do not drink,” Dmitri said cautiously. Some people took offense when he mentioned that, and tried to push alcohol on him, so if Rosemary was the sort to do that, he preferred to find out now. He had once been someone who drank, but that had lead to… well, he hated remembering what that had lead to.

Rosemary seemed unperturbed by this. “Well, then, how about I get you a Shirley Temple? Or maybe a Roy Rogers?”

“Roy Rogers?”

That smile of hers flashed warm and bright again. “You’ve never had one? They’re just cola and grenadine. And a maraschino cherry or two, if you’re being classy.”

It had to have been that smile that made him agree that he would like to try a Roy Rogers. He meant to start working on the page proofs in front of him while Rosemary went to the bar in search of drinks, but instead he found himself watching her with a frown, even as he lost sight of her in the crowd by the bar. She really was quite remarkably short.

The frown must have still been there when Rosemary returned to the table. She set a brownish carbonated drink down in front of him, but did not move to sit. Instead she looked at him with a little frown of her own. “You don’t have to talk to me just because I bought you a drink.”

Dmitri shook his head to clear it. “Sit. Please.”

Rosemary slid back into the seat across from him, next to the coat she had abandoned there when she had gone to the bar, and set a glass with a finger or so of amber liquid in it on the table in front of her. She did not move to take a drink; instead, she propped her forearms against the table in front of her, fingers interlaced. “So.”

Dmitri wrapped his fingers around the glass Rosemary had brought him, staring down at it, studying the maraschino cherry on the rim as if it were the most interesting thing he had ever seen. Better than being seared by that startling smile of hers again. “So,” he echoed, letting his focus remain on the coolth of the glass between his hands. “You must be very desperate, to resort to me.

Rosemary let out a little snort of laughter, and Dmitri looked back up at her again. “Oh, you have no idea. Most of my friends are going to be at this wedding, and the rest of them are either in committed relationships—” she glanced across the bar at Olga and her group of friends at this, “—or are… well.” She turned back to him with saucy smile on her face. “I don’t mind being a cougar, I suppose, but I draw the line at being a cradle-snatcher.”

“I beg pardon?” Idioms were not always Dmitri’s strong suit, but as far as he could tell she seemed to be implying she was much older than he was.

Rosemary’s turned mischievous. “I’m forty-two.”

Dmitri felt his eyebrows climb his forehead in surprise. He might have guessed she was a year or two older, but nine? “Thirty-three is not so very different from forty-two now that we are both adults, surely.”

“When I was graduating from college, you were pre-pubescent,” Rosemary said drily.

“I have not been pre-pubescent for a very long time,” Dmitri growled in response.

Rosemary’s eyes flashed wide and startled for a moment, and she let out a breathless little laugh. “No, I suppose you haven’t, with a voice like that. And I suppose there isn’t that much of a difference.” She picked up her glass and took a sip of the amber liquid it contained, wincing as she did. “And if I didn’t _know_ you were thirty-three, I don’t think I would give it any mind.”

“But it bothers you to know.” And perhaps this was a way out for Dmitri. He was still certain that he was not willing to go to a wedding where he knew no one just to keep one of Olga’s work friends from feeling awkward, and her awkwardness with the age difference would give him a good reason to refuse her. Not that she seemed to need any such reasons from him; so far, her demeanor seemed to indicate that if he told her he did not want to talk to her any more, she would be gone in an instant and he would never hear another word on the subject.

But for some reason, he could not bring himself to refuse her outright and send her away. Perhaps it was just the way she had not stared, had not looked away awkwardly. Perhaps it was because she had treated him like anyone else, not with the exaggerated caution that so many people watched him with when they noticed his lack of hair and his cane. Or perhaps it was just that her smile that left him wanting to continue this conversation for as long as she was willing to have it.

She bit her lower lip, looking down at the table between them. “Doesn’t it bother you to know I’m so much older?”

Dmitri didn’t get a chance to answer her properly; Rosemary’s eyes caught on the pile of paper at his elbow and lit up in excitement. “Oh! Is that a proof of your latest?”

“Er. Yes.” Dmitri gave her a surprised look. “You are a… a fan?” His voice had gone strangely raspy all of a sudden. He lifted the drink she had brought him and took a sip. Like she had said, no alcohol; just the dark, sweet fizz of cola and a hint of tartness from the grenadine.

Rosemary met his eye once more, her face practically glowing with excitement. “When I picked up your first book, I didn’t think that hydroponics and greenhouse gardening would be a particularly fascinating subject, but you changed my mind about that. And now I’ve got a little vertical garden in my kitchen based off one of your designs.” She laughed, a little guiltily. “Ten years ago, I couldn’t keep a plant alive more than two months, no matter how hard I tried, but your methods _work_. And it’s really nice having fresh herbs and vegetables in the apartment, even if I don’t know what to do with them other than salads or flavorings for bread.” She glanced down at the proof again. “What’s this one about?”

He opened his mouth and all that came out was a squeak. He took another sip of his drink and cleared his throat before trying again. “It is about soil,” he said, then shook his head. “No, that is an insufficient explanation. How to put it…” he frowned, tapping the stack of pages. “It is about how to adjust soil chemistry, both with plants and with additives. How to find best plants for your type of soil, how to improve it over time. What is safe, and not safe, to plant in places where soil is contaminated with lead or other things.”

“Healing the earth, a little bit at a time,” said Rosemary, flashing him another brilliant smile. “Of course, as long as corporations like mine are still pumping out tons of carbon dioxide and chemicals and all that jazz, individual efforts can only do so much,” she added, her face going a bit somber at the thought.

“That is true,” Dmitri responded. “But… perhaps within a company, an individual might be able to make difference over time?”

“God knows I’m trying,” said Rosemary, taking another sip of her drink and wincing again, though this time Dmitri wasn’t certain if she was wincing from the topic of conversation or the taste of the drink. Perhaps both. “But I’m still far enough down the chain of command that there’s only so much I can do. I can make sure all of my proposals take the ecological effects of my research into account, and if someone comes up with a cheaper way to do it that’s worse for the world, well…” Rosemary sighed and set the glass down again, rubbing her free hand across her face as she did. “Profit, profit, profit!” she said in a tinny little voice, obviously mocking some superior at work.

He hadn’t worked an office job in almost a decade, so all he could offer up in return was a bland attempt at sympathy. “I am sorry. That must be very frustrating.”

“I’m more worried I’ve gone a little numb to it now.” She sounded very tired and sad all of a sudden. “Like one of these days, I’m going to wake up, go in to work, and find myself thinking ‘well, everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn’t I?’” She shut her eyes and pressed her fingertips against their inner corners for a long, silent moment, and he thought she might be trying not to cry. “It’s so damn hard to be the only one fighting for this sort of thing,” she said finally, her voice very small. “Aside from your sister, that is.” And then she let out a husky laugh and opened her eyes, obviously forcing a smile onto her face. “Sorry about that. I can’t imagine you want to hear about my workplace drama.”

Dmitri shook his head. “I do not mind. I am fighting my lonely battles too.” It wasn’t the same, but perhaps he could relate in some ways. “My editor tends to get a little, ah, snippy when I go off on a particularly virulent rant.”

Rosemary’s smile became real again at that, and a pleasant warmth flooded through him at the sight of it. “I adore your rants,” she said, her eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. “They make me feel less… less alone.”

The last two words were said on a sigh, and there was a strange expression on her face now, as if she were studying him closely and confused about why. It left Dmitri warm and flushed and as confused as she looked.

“What is it?” he asked, as much to break her sudden silence as to find out why she was looking at him that way. When she didn’t respond, he kept asking questions, playing the clown in a way he hadn’t since high school. “Is there something on my face?” He made an exaggerated face, as if trying to catch sight of the top of his own head. “Have I grown a hair?”

Rosemary let out a startled little snort of laughter. “Sorry! It’s just… I told myself I wouldn’t let the fan out, and then I go and say something like that.” Her cheeks darkened in a blush, barely visible even here, at the best-lit table the bar had to offer.

“I do not mind,” he reassured her, though his own blush had yet to fade. “I do not often meet people who have read and enjoyed my books.”

“No, Olga said you’re a bit of a recluse.” Rosemary tilted her head to one side and considered him, a more active perusal this time. “I know she mentioned something once about you being self-conscious about your looks, too, though I can’t imagine why a fellow as handsome as you would have that problem.”

The blush on his face was definitely not going away any time soon. He picked his drink up and took a sip, as much to hide his face behind it as to cool himself off. “I, ah. You would be the first person to ever say that I am handsome to my face,” he managed to get out in a choked voice.

“Really?” Rosemary’s eyebrows climbed her forehead in surprise. “Other people have been missing out if they haven’t noticed. You’re really quite striking.”

“And you are clearly attempting to… to… what is phrase. Butter me up so that I will agree to this ridiculous plan of yours.”

“Plan?” Rosemary looked confused. “Oh! Taking you as my date to the wedding. Right. That plan.” She reached across the table and set her hand against his elbow. “To be entirely honest, I’d forgotten about that.”

Dmitri let out a huff of disbelief and rolled his eyes.

“Honestly.” Rosemary squeezed his arm gently, and he looked at her properly. There was something warm and soft in her expression as she met his eye, and he found it impossible to look away. “You are a very handsome and intelligent man, Dmitri Vologin. And if I weren’t the better part of a decade older than you, I’d definitely be interested in more than just a fake date for what promises to be the world’s most awkward wedding.”

When she said those words, he almost believed them.

He cleared his throat. “How _do_ you wind up being a bridesmaid for two ex-girlfriends at once?” he asked, clinging to a handy change of subject from what she thought of him as a person.

Rosemary sagged theatrically back against the booth’s seat and threw her arm over her face, letting out and exaggerated sigh. “Oh, god, I don’t think I could manage to explain the interpersonal politics behind it if you gave me a thousand years to do the explaining.” Dmitri found himself laughing at the absurdity of her performance, and Rosemary lifted her arm from her face with a grin, as if to say ‘see, you’re not the only one who can play the clown.’

“I will go to this wedding with you,” he found himself saying before he could think better of it. “Obviously you stir up trouble wherever you go and need someone who can keep an eye on you.”

Rosemary sat up straight again, her forearms resting on the table once more. “Oh, I do,” she said, her voice rich with suppressed laughter of her own. “Thank you. I know I’m the next thing to a stranger, and you don’t owe me anything, but… thank you.”

“Anything for a friend of Olga’s.” Dmitri reached across the table to set his hand over hers, and Rosemary caught it up in her own hand, giving his a brief, firm squeeze.

“How about for a friend of your own?” she asked cautiously. “If you’d like one, that is,” she added in a rush.

Dmitri blinked, startled. “I… I think I might like that.”

“Good,” said Rosemary, her friendly smile warming him through. “I think I might like that too.”


	3. Chapter 3

They talked a little longer, perhaps an hour or so, Rosemary doing her best to tamp down her enthusiasm for Dmitri’s books and interact with him on the level of normal human beings. Well, on the level of human beings with an interest in soil chemistry, which perhaps wasn’t very normal. They exchanged phone numbers and made tentative plans for next Saturday—Rosemary would pick him up and take him to the wedding venue and she had assured him that any old suit would be fine, these weren’t fancy people—and then she had excused herself with a smile and the comment that he probably wanted to get on with his page proofs. “Can’t keep your publisher waiting, after all!”

“No, it would be most inadvisable. I have dump truck full of composted manure arriving next week, and I would like to be able to afford it,” came his dry response.

Rosemary failed to suppress her snort of laughter. “I see. Well then. I’m sorry I distracted you for so long.”

His expression softened into something that was almost a smile. “It was a welcome distraction. Truly.” His cheeks flushed and he looked down at his page proofs, shuffling through them. “You have given me a few ideas about how to strengthen one of the chapters I was uncertain about, though my publisher might not appreciate such drastic changes at such a late date.”

“I’ll write them an apology letter,” she rasped, scooping up his hand and squeezing it once more, suppressing a laugh as he looked up at her with wide, startled eyes. Oh, she could run roughshod over this man if she wanted to, and he would enjoy it.

Not that she was considering it.

“I’ll see you next Saturday,” she said, still holding his hand lightly in hers. “And I am really, _truly_ grateful to you. I promise, if it gets to be too much between now and then, all you need to do is call me up and let me know you’re out, all right? Or just pass the message along via Olga, if you think you can’t do it yourself.”

Dmitri looked as if he were about to say something, but instead he just nodded and squeezed Rosemary’s hand in return. She found herself strangely reluctant to release his hand, and even more reluctant to stop looking at that striking face of his, but somehow she tore herself away, gathered up her things, and went to join Olga over near the bar.

“Well?” Olga threw her arm across Rosemary’s shoulders. “Will he do it?”

“Yes, though I’ll probably want to scope out some hiding spots in the venue, just in case he needs to hide from it all. Hell, just in case I need to hide myself.” Rosemary glanced over her shoulder at the booth, where Dmitri was hunched over his page proofs scribbling frantically. “He’s charming, though.”

Olga raised a dubious eyebrow. “Charming. My brother, charming.”

Rosemary rolled her eyes at her friend. “Yes, charming.”

“It is just that I have never heard _charming_ before. I have heard awkward, and shy, and occasionally stuck-up, but not charming.”

“Perhaps they didn’t try talking to him about something he’s actually interested in.”

“And what did you talk about for so long?”

“The wedding, his book, and eventually we got around to nitrogen fixing.”

Olga gave her a blank stare. “Nitrogen fixing. You spent an hour talking to my brother about nitrogen fixing.”

“Through crop rotation.”

“I see.”

“It’s really quite fascinating,” Rosemary protested. Olga’s area of expertise might be more on the pharmaceutical end of things, but surely she had to have at least a passing interest in what her brother did, didn’t she?

“I’m sure.” Olga turned an intent look on Rosemary. “You know, you have been single for a very long time, Rosemary.”

Not a conversation Rosemary was willing to have with Olga, tonight or any other night. Especially when it was Dmitri that Olga seemed to be pinning her hopes on. “Oh, no. Don’t you start. I’m going to get enough of that sort of thing from people at the wedding, and I still have to brave rehearsal dinner on my own.” A small falsehood, but one that would hopefully give her peace from Olga’s interfering. “And I think it’s time for me to catch a cab and call it a night.”

“But I have hardly had time to talk to you!”

“I’ll see you around work!” Rosemary waved a hand over her shoulder and headed towards the door, pausing for a moment to slip back into her coat when she got there. Somehow, as she pulled her scarf out of a pocket and prepared to face the winter weather outside, her eye caught on Dmitri in his booth across the bar.

She really had been charmed. Dmitri was awkward, it was true, but most of her coworkers would choose to be as reclusive as him if they could get away with it. As the sole extrovert in her research group, she had gotten used to filling awkward silences and smoothing rough conversational edges, and Dmitri had warmed to her tactics more quickly than most of the people she worked with. All it had taken was genuine interest in his books and he had been immediately engaged, all awkwardness gone.

She liked him. Well, she had expected to; she liked his books, and more than that, she liked his sister. But Dmitri Vologin was a very different creature from his effervescent, opinionated sister. Not that he was any less opinionated, but the things he had opinions on were things Rosemary could offer informed opinions of her own about, and, unlike most other men, he hadn’t challenged her credentials when she’d begun offering those opinions. Instead, he had simply listened and accepted that she knew what she was talking about, taking in the points she was making before offering up measured counterpoints of his own.

Rosemary didn’t remember the last time she’d had a conversation with a man where that had happened, regardless of whether the man knew anything about her field of study or not.

It was refreshing.

Dmitri glanced up just then, catching her eye, and she turned her attention back to her scarf, feeling flushed and flustered. What she had meant as a brief glance had turned into a long look, drinking the sight of Dmitri Vologin in. She finished tucking her scarf down the front of her coat and did up the last button before dashing out the door, almost bowling over someone who was on their way in and offering up a breathless apology.

It was better outside. The cold air was bracing, and chilled the heat from her cheeks in seconds. She decided to walk home instead of finding a taxi. It was only a mile, after all, and she could use the exercise.

Her apartment felt strangely quiet after the noise of the bar. Quiet and empty. She didn’t mind the quiet so much—Adriane had always liked things that way—but even now, almost three years after the end of their relationship, she still anticipated the other woman’s presence when she entered her apartment.

Really, she should have moved after she and Adriane had broken up. This apartment had too many memories attached to it. That they were almost all good made it worse; having good and bad in balance could have made it almost bearable, but the weight of the good was such that bittersweet and painful memories lingered everywhere.

Her lease was up in the spring. Perhaps it was time to start looking for a new place. Adriane would be married soon, so maybe it was time to finally put the chapter of her life that had contained Adriane behind her.

And now she was too wound up to sleep. Rosemary cursed her overactive mind and made for her kitchen. She was low on the muffins she kept in the freezer for quick breakfasts when she didn’t want to make anything more complicated—which was just about every morning—so it was time to do some baking.

The simple act of setting out ingredients soothed her, and a sense of calm stole over her as she measured and mixed. The chemistry of a good bake was easy to manage, unlike the rest of her life. By the time the muffins were in the oven, she had set aside the melancholy that had seized her when she had entered her apartment.

The baking left her with time to wash the dishes that had somehow built up in her sink that week and a few minutes more to tend her little kitchen garden. She smiled as she pruned unruly herbs back under control, thinking about her conversation with Dmitri from earlier that evening. It had left her wanting more space to experiment with plants. Perhaps if she moved into a new apartment, she could find one with a balcony large enough to get a real garden going in pots and buckets. Her little setup in the kitchen was all well and good, but it would be nice to have space for larger plants. Tomatoes, perhaps, though they could be finicky. But zucchini were almost impossible to kill, and they made for a good quick-bread and excellent muffins.

Not that she had the time to take care of more of a garden than she already had with the hours she worked, but she could dream.

Her phone rang as she was taking the muffins out of the oven, and she dropped the tins hastily on the stovetop and dove for the the phone, snatching it out of its cradle. “You’ve reached Rosemary Epps.”

“Rosie, it’s me.”

“Oh! Al.” Rosie smiled and sank to the ground next to where the phone was mounted on the wall. “What’s up?”

“I was just wondering whether you’d be needin’ some moral support right now,” Al said.

Rosemary laughed, fiddling with the phone cord. She’d called him for a pep talk before heading over to the bar, when the potential awkwardness of going on a not-quite-date with a coworker’s brother had finally hit her full force. “He said yes.”

There was a sigh of relief from Al’s end of the line. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Is it pitiful that I don’t want to go alone? I feel like it’s pitiful.” Rosemary bit her lower lip. “Like, why can’t I just be single and proud of it, you know?”

“Not sure what you want me to tell you there, darlin’.”

“Mm.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him while you’re busy with the wedding. We all will.”

Rosemary let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“All you’ve got to do is ask. You know that.”

She did know, but that didn’t mean she liked the asking. She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “I’d better let you get on with your nightly routine.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Goodnight, Al.”

He sighed. “Good night. Love you, Rosie.”

“Love you too, Al.” Rosemary shoved herself back to her feet and hung up the phone, letting out another sigh as she did. She hadn’t really expected Al to have an answer to the question that had been plaguing her since she had decided to see if a total stranger would be her date to this wedding, but now that question was nagging at her. Why couldn’t she just go to this event and be single and happy with it?

Why was it so hard for her to be alone?


	4. Chapter 4

Dmitri expected himself to back out of his agreement with Rosemary. Over the next week, he found himself picking up the card she had given him almost daily, just to study it, the regimented printed text of her work information, the round sprawl of the home number she had scrawled left-handed on the back of it with his pen. But something stopped him from calling either number. He did not realize what it was until he went to the bar with Olga for a second week in a row, something he had never done, and found himself disappointed by Rosemary's absence.

He wanted to see her again.

It had been a very long time since he had been so eager to see someone again that he would change his routine for them.

Rosemary called Friday night to check in, and he found himself smiling at the sound of her voice on the other end of the line. “I just got back from the rehearsal dinner, and… well, I just wanted to say again that I really don't want you to feel obligated to go tomorrow just because you said yes the other day."

"Do not worry. I can manage." He cleared his throat. "I rewrote one of the chapters I was working on the other night. Based on your feedback."

"You did?" She sounded startled.

"Da. Shall I read it to you?"

"Please. I'm flattered."

She was impossible to read to; she kept interrupting with comments that lead to conversations that lead to the pair of them being up far too late.

"Oh, lord, the time!"

"I apologize. I should not have suggested reading chapter."

"I enjoyed it. Did you?"

A touch of anxiety had entered her voice, and Dmitri rushed to reassure her. "Very much so."

She let out a soft, relieved laugh at that. "Well, we can talk about it more on the drive tomorrow, if we haven't discussed it to death already."

"I would like that."

"See you at one?"

"I will be ready."

With a soft "Goodnight," the line went dead, and Dmitri sank back against the cushions of his living room couch, the phone’s handset still in his hand.

He liked her. It had years since he had last talked so freely with another person, if he ever had. Now that he was thinking about it, he could not remember another time when conversation had come so easily.

He sighed and grabbed his cane, levering himself to his feet. It was well past midnight—had been already when Rosemary had hung up on him—and he needed to at least try and sleep. Try and not think about Rosemary, either.

He had been imagining her face as they spoke. She had been animated that other night in the bar, her every emotion transparent, and that memory of her animation had made it easy to imagine her there in his living room, perched on the other end of his couch, laughing and smiling her way through their conversation.

He had imagined that she wanted to see him again as much as he wanted to see her, and if that was not the most foolish thing he could have been imagining he did not know what was.

“You will see her tomorrow,” he told himself in the mirror over his bathroom sink as he finished preparing for bed. “You will see her tomorrow, and perhaps, if you are lucky, she will have meant it when she told you she wished to be your friend.” His own face stared back, cold and expressionless, and he tried to shape his feelings to match that mask.

He was not very successful.

Rosemary picked him up early the next afternoon, driving a little red VW Beetle. He opened his door at her knock to find her wearing snow boots and a teal wool coat, with what looked like a remarkably fluffy skirt peeking out between the two.

“Lots of ice out here, so I thought you could use a hand,” she said cheerfully. “You’re really up in the hills here, huh?”

Dmitri took her proffered arm gratefully. “Thank you. These shoes do not have much traction.”

“Oh! Wait, back inside a moment.”

“Pardon?”

Rosemary lifted one of her feet. “I’ve got crampons.”

Dmitri stared down at her boot, bemused. A metal and rubber contraption was strapped to the bottom of it. “I will be fine, thank you.”

“And I’ll be steady enough without them, so please, take them.” Rosemary leaned against the wall in front of his house and started unstrapping the crampon from her boot, holding it out for him when she wrenched it free. “Might as well try them out for yourself. I can tell you where to get a pair of your own if you like them.”

Dmitri found himself smiling at her enthusiasm. “Very well. Hand them over.”

The crampons did help. His dress shoes might not have done the job without them, not with his knees as unsteady as they were even on a good day. And while today was not a bad day, it wasn’t exactly a good one, either. He had not slept enough the night before for it to be a good day.

Once they were both safely ensconced in her car, Rosemary turned to him with a bright smile. “Ready for this?”

“I suddenly feel as if if I ought to be far more apprehensive than I have been,” he replied drily. “But yes, I am ready.”

Rosemary patted his arm, then started the car up. “Don’t worry. I softened everyone who matters up at the rehearsal dinner last night. Told them it was very new, and that I’d thank them kindly not to interrogate you.”

“Very new, hm?” asked Dmitri, in what he hoped was a teasing tone of voice. She seemed to like to be teased, or at least it had made her laugh the last few times they had talked, and he was surprised to find that he enjoyed teasing her.

“Oh, behave,” said Rosemary, her blush obvious in the clear, bright daylight that was filtering through the car windows. She shot him a sideways look and a little smile, and for once Dmitri found himself smiling easily back.

They resumed their conversation from the night before without a stumble, Dmitri talking his way through the remaining chapters of his new book and Rosemary offering commentary and asking questions. An hour-long drive passed in what felt more like five minutes, and then they were pulling in to what appeared to be a rather superior country club.

Dmitri looked down at his old wool coat and even older tweed suit, suddenly worried about whether he would fit in with such surroundings. “You are certain that these are not fancy people?”

Rosemary parked before offering up another comforting pat on the arm and a kind smile. “I promise. It’s just that Miranda went off and made her fortune in computer programming, and now that she’s loaded she feels obligated to live it up. But all the rest of us are a rather shabby lot by nature.”

Dmitri gave Rosemary a dubious look, and she obviously caught it out of the corner of her eye, because she closed the car door she had just opened and turned back towards him. She scooped up his hand in her own, and interlaced her fingers with his, squeezing gently.

“I would have called it quits last week if I thought you wouldn’t be able to stand up to the onslaught ahead of you,” she said, looking him in the eye. “And if it ever gets to be too much, there’s a sitting room just off the main event hall that won’t be in use once the brides have taken their photos, so I’ll take you there to hide from everyone if you need it, okay?” And then, so quickly he suspected the decision to do so hadn’t properly made it to her brain, Rosemary leaned over and pressed a quick peck to his cheek.

That impression of impulsivity was confirmed by the wild-eyed expression he caught on her face as she pulled back from him. She extracted her hand from his with a quick tug and turned back towards her door, getting hastily out of the car, and Dmitri did the same on his side. Someone had been over the parking lot with copious amounts of salt and sand, so getting back out of the car was considerably less hazardous than getting into it had been, and Dmitri sat back down to remove the crampons, leaving them below his seat.

Meanwhile, Rosemary had been opening her trunk and had pulled out a large wrapped present—which she balanced on one hip—and a bag that she slung over her shoulder. And then, side-by-side, they made their way into the wedding venue.


End file.
